The Album Collection #13: 2013, Public Service Broadcasting, Inform – Educate – Entertain

by Charlie_East_West on July 1, 2013

Bored of your music collection? Fancy listening to something different? I have a public service information announcement to make:- Buy Public Service Broadcasting’s Inform-Educate-Entertain album today.

Public Service Broadcasting’s brave manifesto is to “teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future”. The London based experimental musical duo consisting of J.Willgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth II have bizarrely hit the jackpot on their new album Inform – Educate – Entertain by featuring samples from old news archive footage, US and UK propaganda newsreels, and public information films and blending them with electronic post-rock mixes. The result = a brilliantly creative, inspiring and original album.

After generating a fantastic critical response for their 2012 ‘The War Room EP‘ which was quickly followed by the wonderful Everest single, based around The Conquest of Everest, a 1953 film charting Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s first successful ascent of the mountain. The debut album, Inform – Educate – Entertain was released in May 2013. I bought the album two weeks ago and I have relentlessly played it ever since.

The whole concept works brilliantly. The old public information broadcasts are a homage to those old BBC Reithian values to “educate, inform and entertain.” The album fundamentally works because of the hugely imaginative compositions, the intelligent use of samples, and the brilliant music on each track. Every single track leaves you feeling like it has completely tapped into the soundscape atmosphere of the subject matter within each song. The album is quite possibly the most imaginative and interesting album of the year so far. It is a lesson in the art of retro-futurism.

Willgoose and Wrigglesworth, the duo behind Public Service Broadcasting, have created something really interesting here. They have delivered upon their ambitious premise to “teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future.”

I have attached three tracks from the album – Spitfire, Signal 30 and Everest. I hope you will be informed, educated and entertained.